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thoughts on the spaces in between

Tag Archives: gratitude

That’s the crib in our sitting room upstairs. It’s ready and waiting for our first grandchild who is due later this week (of course it’s up to her to decide when she’s ready). Pretty exciting stuff. Other than the arrival of one’s own children, there are few other heart-in-your-mouth moments in life. And I could wax pseudo-poetic on the magnificence of pearly toes and downy ears, that indescribable smell on the back of a baby’s neck, the sensation of little breaths against one’s cheek.

What they don’t tell you is that part of you re-awakens..the part that looks at your child-who-is-now-a-man and remembers how he would cling to you like a little monkey – arms and legs tightly wound around you so that there was no need to hold on to him for he was secure against your body (though you held him just the same). They don’t tell you that as he anticipates his daughter’s arrival or marvels at his wife’s equanimity and calm or imagines the awesome child that they are going to have, you are left alone with a sense of mild imbalance. For you can’t pull him onto your lap and remind him that you have been there – you had the experience of awesome children. Somehow there aren’t words that you can say any longer with the same forgiveness extended – that you’re a mushy, soppy mom who still is completely in love with her kids/men. And I am watching my son prepare to be a parent.

They don’t tell you that there is something surreal about it all. How this cycle, as reliable as night following day, moves in a rhythm of its own design. How you wish and wonder, hope and dream, fret and agonize, invest a love that defies description into years that you feel will be forever (certainly some phases that seemed endless too). I mentioned this to my sister – ‘when did this happen, Deb? How did we get here?’ She told me that when I was pregnant, my mother said something similar – though she never mentioned it to me. Undoubtedly I was far too wrapped up in the experience of becoming a mom to give much thought to her becoming a grandmother. To think of her children having children. I wish she was here – if only for me to tell her that I get it.

If there is any dissonance, its feeling so much love that I feel as if the heart can’t hold it all (for some of it must be held back or there’d be no dealing with me – as it is I can be insufferable). That love? Oh yes, baby girl it awaits you from so many corners of your life. But there is a certain love – that love that happens between a parent and a child. The one you hold onto forever while still letting go – that’s in there too. And that is the legacy of love you will inherit when you arrive.

“Nobody can do for little children what grandparents can do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children” — Alex Haley…I promise you stardust.

I’d write this to Santa, but being way over the age of majority and Jewish, it would seem remarkably disingenuous to do so. Instead, I’m sending this to the universe, because based on my calculations, it’s large enough to handle a few requests from me.

Hi Universe,

How’s it going where you are? Hopefully well, and you’re approaching the holidays with both anticipation and delight. I hope you get all that you ask for and realize that you already have all that you want. I’m not a big one for lists – I’ve been blessed too many times over to look at a gifted life and seek more.

And yet.

There are some things I desperately want this year. You see, we’ll be welcoming our first grandchild into the world in February, and while I spend a ridiculous amount of time wondering what our relationship will be like, I’m spending more time perseverating about the world she will be joining. And there’s some work we really need to do.

– This year I want the world to work on forgiveness. If we’ve done something wrong – to the world or to an individual – let’s own it, apologize, forgive and learn the lesson. I feel emotionally assaulted everyday – whether it is the horrific senselessness of murder and ill-defined parameters of justice; too many homeless for my extra coats to warm; so much vitriol and judgment and too little shared compassion and faith. Anonymous haters spitting venom in virtual environments where pain is the currency and absence of accountability is assured. Can we have a body politic that agrees that a good foundation is one predicated upon us not hurting each other and/or this fragile earth we are only borrowing for a short while? Can we eliminate the ‘yeah, but…’ and replace it with ‘maybe we can’?

– This year I want families and friends to recognize that we can be extensions of our best selves to those we love the most and reflect a better self to those who we may never see again. I want memories to be filled with limitless possibilities that we inspire with the merest of actions, the most innocent of exchanges, a smile.

– I don’t want any more children to be hungry, or cold, or denied the feeling of being held in love and safety.

– I want gratitude to be as contagious as kvetching and just as colorful.

– I want the world’s religions to remember that the shared predicate is love. I’m no scholar, but I’m no fool either. If there is no love as a foundation, what is there to believe?

– This year, I want this whole growing up thing to be a little easier. I thought I’d at least know what I don’t know instead of finding the list increasing and expanding each day…Universe, I ask that we give ourselves the gift of the better part of who we are. Chicken soup for the world, I guess.

“It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendship, prayer, conscience, honesty – and said ‘do the best you can with these, they will have to do.’ And mostly; against all odds, they do.” — Annie LaMott

Well, Bogey navigated us to the mountains yesterday, and despite his insistence on looking behind or beside us, we made it.

And now comes the snow, with no estimates even suggested for those of us at ‘higher elevations’. Clearly this ain’t no gamblin’ town.

It’s a cozy Thanksgiving this year – one beloved son and daughter-in-law, Andy, four Sirs (one grand-dog included at the Round Table) and yours truly. One cherished son in Toronto; the other adored one, with his in-laws. My sister is up in NY; Andy’s family in CA. I’ve never prepared Thanksgiving for four. And since I’m not sure how successful I will be at re-calculating measurements, there will be plenty of leftovers. It feels a little strange – and yet it’s ok – for everyone is where they want/need to be. And they’re fine. Let’s move on.

Something about the silence that accompanies snow forces one to pause and listen. It is right to pay attention at times like these. When the world continually reminds us why we’re angry, impotent, righteously indignant and not righteous enough, the snow blinds me to all of this vitriol. It provides a day of muted noise – a compulsory moment to feel something other than head-shaking disillusion.

Gratitude and giving thanks – it’s as white and clean and pure as snow falling. Despite some chronic pain stuff (yawn), which has compromised aspects of my life lately, I am choosing this moment of grace. To be thankful. Thankful for family and friends who are generous with their love and laughter; meager with their criticisms and callousness. Thankful that I’m going to be a grandma in February and hopeful that I may be a vital part of this little girl’s life. Thankful for new friends who expand my view of the road ahead, and old friends who have rejoined my travels and have myopic vision that forgives much of history. Thankful for giggles that cause stomach aches, tears that cleanse and puppy kisses. Thankful for books that transport and bring me home again. Thankful for music that accompanies all my moments. Thankful for featherbeds and drool-y naps. Thankful for t-shirts warm from the dryer. Thankful for those spaces in between – when my breathing slows and I bow my head. ‘Please. Wow. Thanks.’ – to paraphrase Annie Lamott. That is the prayer; the alpha and the omega. We are blessed. We love and we are loved. We have limitless capacity for a limited time. Gotta get your grateful on. And I do. Before I get to the chestnuts that will be roasting and sweet potatoes baking and turkey brining…before the smells begin to infuse the house with hints of tomorrow’s yumminess. Get to that place where the greatest tradition is observed – where you go to whisper ‘thank you’.

I can’t believe I’ve written nothing for a couple of weeks – yet there has been so much going on that I can’t quite get a grip on my reaction to it all. Horrific events around the world, virulent illnesses, the passing of iconic talents, thirteen years gone by since 9/11. I was in NY that day – and yet to write of that day seems disingenuous. How the air stank as a disgustingly grey cloud forged uptown. Shock and disbelief trumped any sense of reality. Yet, I am here; my family is fine; I didn’t have that much innocence left for the thievery that occurred that day.

And still, this all seems like too much stimuli – I am too pained to be numb and too numb to reveal or touch the pain evinced in my heart. For reasons unknown to me, I can’t rise above this ache and feel stymied by my limitations with the English language. Somehow it feels like there’s no recovery period, no chance to re-group, cry the needed tears or resume breathing rhythmically.

This morning broke a bit differently though. The air is clear, the sky so blue it seems almost as if in a cartoon. The weariness of the leaves hinted at the promise of colors so vibrant, that the landscape waits with impatience. And I felt myself inhale for the first time perhaps in weeks. I drove with all the windows down, letting the breeze in and maybe suffusing the air around me with something fresher and kinder. Hope, hope – in the moment, for tomorrow, for the moments unseen. And finally, I bowed my head and cried.

Listening to NPR, this was playing …and I sat in the parking lot and was lifted. I hope. And I hope you do too.

My parents were a great-looking couple. More than their physical appearances – they looked vital, engaging life with much the same grace and rhythm with which they danced. Something remarkable happened when they entered a room – they flirted and laughed and played and delighted those around them. They did it differently, for in many respects they had completely individual life constructs and approaches.

And today marks the eleventh year since my dad has been gone. Eleven attenuated, inexorable years. Eleven years that have passed before I took another breath. To say I miss him is a cliché; to diminish that fact would be a lie. He was my touchstone, the person I sought out when I needed to talk ‘work’ or topics which I held most private. He brought me up short without hesitation and he delighted in my successes. He was the most loving role model for my sons when they were little. If they have integrated any of his values, curiosity, warmth, etc, they are the better men for it.

We listened to John Philip Sousa marches when we went into work together. He would try to excite me about the book he was reading – whether it was about the life of a cell or the biography of some vague historical figure. He read the New York Times on the subway, folding the paper in that efficient way that commuters did that allowed them to hold on to an overhead strap simultaneously. And he would occasionally look over and laugh as he saw me nose-to-armpit with another commuter. We would always drive in the next day.

The words I spoke at his funeral were buried with him. Somehow I felt that they really didn’t matter to anyone except him. And with him gone, there were some thoughts that I would never utter again. And yet, I speak to him in some way or another every day.

This morning Bill Wooten @ drbillwooten.com posted a poem (re-printed below) that felt like it was meant for today and for me – as if my dad and I were walking down 82nd Street in Jackson Heights, heading for Shelley’s bakery. As if he were still reminding me to look past that which disillusions me and find the aspect that brings a greater calm. He is always here though he has been gone for so very long. He is the lump in my throat. He is the secret in my heart. He is the presence I seek in the subtle gestures in each day.

The Invitation

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for, and

if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,

for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow,

if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or

have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,

without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,

if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you

to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be

careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;

if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every

day, and if you can source your life from God’s presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,

and still stand on the edge of a lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair,

weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you are, how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,

and truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.” — Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from the book ‘The Invitation’